The 11th session of the United Nations Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods and the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (9 December 2022) adopted a set of new amendments to the seventh revised edition of the Manual of Tests and Criteria (including the first amendment), and released the eighth revised edition of the Manual of Tests and Criteria on 27 November 2023.

On November 27th, 2023, MIC of Vietnam issued a draft notice to revise and supplement the control content of communication products. The draft content is expected to come into effect on April 1, 2024, and it will replace the current effective regulation Circular 04/2023/TT-BTTTT and the circular Circular 10/2023/TT-BTTTT issued in September this year on suspending the implementation of some technical standards such as 5G NR under extreme conditions.

On December 13th, 2023, ECHA issued the REF-10 enforcement action report. The main focus of this enforcement project is to comprehensively control chemicals in products (substances, mixtures and articles) within different legislative categories such as REACH regulations, POPs regulations, RoHS directives and toy directives.

On November 15th, 2023, the UK issued the regulation UK S.I. 2023/1217, which updated the control scope of POPs regulations, and perfluorohexane sulfonic acid (PFHxS), its salts and related substances were included in the control scope, with the effective date of November 16th, 2023.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) issued the 65th revision of the Dangerous Goods Code (DGR), which will take effect on January 1st, 2024.

The standard UL 4200A:2023 for consumer products including button/coin batteries came into effect on October 23rd, 2023. 16 CFR 1263 will also take effect on the same day, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) will give a 180-day enforcement transition period from September 21, 2023 to March 19, 2024, and the enforcement date of 16 CFR 1263 will be March 19, 2024.

On November 8, 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the latest guidance, announcing its intention to delay the enforcement of the Cosmetic Regulation Modernization Act of 2022 (MoCRA) for the registration and product column name of cosmetic enterprises for six months (before July 1, 2024), so as to help relevant enterprises have enough time to submit such facilities registration andProduct column name enforcement time.

On December 4, 2023, the European Union issued the revised draft of Annex I of POPs Regulation (EU)2019/1021, and launched public feedback on the requirements of perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) in Annex I of EU POP Regulation (EU) 2019/1021, mainly proposing to tighten the limit requirements of PFOS and cancel specific exemption clauses. The feedback period of the draft will end on January 1, 2024.